Call for more Electric Vehicle charge points in Derry and Strabane

Derry City and Strabane District Council SDLP representative Martin Reilly has called for more Electric Vehicle (EV) charge points across the city and district.

During November’s Environment and Regeneration Committee meeting, members were presented with a report on the proposed reinstatement of EV charge points at both the Derry and Strabane council offices.

The report highlighted that officers have convened an internal working group to discuss the installation of ‘significant additional charging points’ in other council assets such as community centres, leisure centres and parks and car parks, with a further report due to be brought to members at a future meeting.

Councillor Reilly welcomed council’s plans to install more charging points, particularly at car parks.

However, he said there is a lack of charging points across the city and district, and specifically in the Waterside, with no provision at key areas like Altnagelvin Hospital.

Councillor Reilly added: “This is something that the council should be giving more attention to, and involving DfI in relation to seeing what grants are available.

“People coming to the city [should be] able to charge their car and go home again without having to spend that money and that dwell time outside of the city.

”The nearest rapid charging point to Altnagelvin is either out at Strathfoyle, but for people that may be coming from a different part of the city out at Dungiven or beyond, there is an issue about the lack of charging points in the Waterside; in the city as a whole."

Council’s Head of Environment and Building Control, Conor Canning, said the report will be an ‘extensive piece of work’ and provide a full portfolio of council assets for consideration, but the location of charging stations is ultimately up to providers.

“Obviously some of those locations will be more attractive to users, but the intention is to offer that to the EV providers and have them come in then and tell us what they're willing to install on council properties," he said.

“Beyond that we can certainly engage with DfI, but I think that the direction of travel is at the market and the providers.”

“We'll look to carry out the installations where they see fit, but the internal council team intend to have a document, probably in the new year, that we're going to offer to the market to say: ‘here's all of our assets, here's where we think that we have numbers in terms of users, frequency of users, length of visits' and so on, and then see what they can provide back to council.”